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Need to buy a new router

06-08-2007, 01:25 PM

I need to buy a new router. My Cox cable guy just left and essentially my router is adding to the "noise" of my signal for my internet. My signal strength was at a 28 which is to low. After doing some testing and removing my router and going direct it jumped to a 32. It has made a huge difference my download speed is now 16.8mbps and my upload is 565kbps. So if anyone knows of an affordable router that preferably has a built in firewall I would appreciate any advice thanks. I am not running wireless so that's not required but if there's a model out there that has wireless capabilities with good performance I would be cool with that.

Comment

Well I went with ScratchMonkeys suggestion and bought the WRT-54GL and it seems to be good so far. It is $49.99 at Best Buy so it was well with in my price range which was nice. I have dropped a bit in my signal strength to 29.6 but my connection speed is at 15.8 mbps which is sufficient. The wireless is nice to have and was easy to setup and secure. The wife has a laptop from work that is wireless capable and she now has the freedom to do her work anywhere in the house. This is good since now I don't have to try and convince her we needed another router :) Thanks ScratchMonkey for the good suggestion

Comment

It's odd your router would add any noise to the DSL line, as they should be decoupled.

Well I am not running a DSL line. I am with cox cable. I am not exactly sure why the router was causing interference but it was definitely causing some issues. My old router was almost 7-8years old if I remember correctly so it was time to update anyway.

sigpic

Comment

The basic Linksys firmware (based on Linux) isn't bad, but you can get derived firmware from the site I mentioned earlier that's pretty decent. I've been using Sveasoft stuff but the politics of their development is leaning me towards one of the other firmware groups.

Dude, seriously, WHAT handkerchief?

snooggums' density principal: "The more dense a population, the more dense a population."

Iliana: "You're a great friend but if we're ever chased by zombies I'm tripping you."

Comment

The number that was told to me from the Cox guy was 30. You want your signal to be 30 or above. What that number means I have no idea but it was under the modem control and right now I am at 29.6 and I am still getting respectable DL speeds

What kind of signal levels do I want on my cable modem? (#3412)
Downstream Power:
You generally want between -12db and +12db. Most modems are rated from -15 to +15. Anything less or more than that and you may have quality issues.

I personally prefer to not have less than -7db. If you want to raise your signal level a bit, check my troubleshooting and splitter section.

Downstream SNR:
This number is best over 30, but you may not have any problems with down to 25. Anything less and you will probably have slow transfers, dropped connections, etc.

See my "Downstream SNR" definition for more information on this.

Upstream Power:
The lower this number is, the better. If it is above 55, you may want to see if you can reconfigure your splitters. Anything above 57 is not good and should be fixed ASAP. (This is getting pretty close to not being able to connect.)

Upstream SNR:
Anything above 29 is considered good. The higher this number is, the better. If this number is below 25 and 29, you have a minute amount of noise leaking in somewhere. If it's anything less than 25, you want to get it fixed as you may have a lot of packet loss or slow transfer rates.